Conching devices are employed for refining chocolate pastes, e.g. after processing the chocolate paste on roller mills. When manufacturing large amounts of an equal formulation, there can be used continuous conching devices or batch conching devices having a large volume. In the production of small charges, there must be used small conching devices, since the conching trough has to be filled up to a minimum level.
Most chocolate manufacturers produce chocolate of different formulations. Some specialized factories employ up to 200 different formulations, most of which, however, are merely required in small amounts. Apart from the formulations that are manufactured in small amounts, there is mostly produced a milk chocolate, a black and a white chocolate in large amounts. To produce the different chocolates in different amounts with a minimum expenditure of labor, both small and large or continuous conching devices have to acquired. However, this calls for great capital investment and space requirement so that the advantages of the smaller expenditure of labor will again be compensated for.
It is an object of the present invention to describe a conching device which can be employed both for optimally producing relatively small and large amounts of chocolate pastes of different formulations requiring merely small capital investment and space requirement.